Jared Lee Loughner sits in a Bureau of Prisons' Medical Center in Springfield, Mo., most likely being pumped full of anti- psychotic drugs until he is deemed mentally competent to stand trial for the January shooting rampage in Arizona that killed six people and wounded 14, including U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords. It was a horrifying incident that seems both preventable and unavoidable a...

So exactly what is the point of this story? Your cat is mentally deranged, and should be pumped full of those anti-psychotic drugs? She's a "normal" cat, doing what cats do. Loughner is a mentally ill person -- he may have some "reason" for committing his awful actions, but certainly nothing most "normal" people would recognize as rational thinking. You conflate a normal cat with a literally crazy human. There's a GREAT deal of anthropomorphism in your article -- "It is tragic enough that we have creatures among us with a desire to inflict pain and to kill ..." Do you really believe your cat has a desire to inflict pain? That she'll kill is undeniable, but does she recognize she's *inflicting* pain? I'm sure she'd recognize it if it was inflicted upon her, but knowing she's hurting another creature? Nuh-uh, no way; Leo is seen as dinner. Her or him. He dies, so she can live. That's not "crazy", but very rational.

I understand you are seeing this through your son's eyes, and therefore this argument is an appeal to pathos. It couldn't be otherwise for a loving mom. However, that is a logical fallacy; in short, you can't argue apples and oranges. For your son, yes; for a newspaper article, NO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion"Instead of facts, persuasive language is used to develop the foundation of an appeal to emotion-based argument. Thus, the validity of the premises that establish such an argument does not prove to be verifiable."AND"Conclusively, the appeal to emotion fallacy presents a perspective intended to be superior to reason. Appeals to emotion are intended to draw visceral feelings from the acquirer of the information. And in turn, the acquirer of the information is intended to be convinced that the statements that were presented in the fallacious argument are true; solely on the basis that the statements may induce emotional stimulation such as fear ..."

I can almost recognize what you're trying to say, but you must have been functioning under a deadline with no idea what to write about. The lack of other comments should tell you something -- if this is an example of your best effort, don't give up your day job.

And what is your solution? A nanny state that closely monitors every individual and makes bureaucratic determinations about the fitness of each person to walk about, drive vehicles, own baseball bats, use knives, have pieces of rope, purchase rat poison, own pillows, have bathtubs, widow sashes, garden shovels, hunting rifles, rakes, trowels, or any other devices that could conceivably be used to harm another person? Because that is what you are inferring. You want a society that will anticipate and prevent every possible act of aggression that can possible be foisted upon another person and take steps to make sure that that act cannot be committed by removing the potential weapon from from the community. Regardless of the legitimate uses that item may have to all others.

99.99% of all other people conduct themselves in a safe and responsible manner and you want to punish them because one mentally deranged individual? You want to disarm all of society and put them at the mercy of criminals and thieves and not allow them to defend themselves and their families?

No, we haven't evolved to the point we can stop murders from committing crimes. So we do what we can within the constraints of the Constitution. And that Constitution guarentees the citizen the right to own a gun, for self protection.

In your analogy, had the lizard had a gun available, instead of relying solely on the tank, it might have been the cat dead on the carpet. Or perhaps the cat just scared away by a warning shot and both would be alive.

The wrong move is to limit guns for all animals, knowing the lizard then won't have a gun, but the cat will get one illegally anyway. Then no tank in the world will stop a cat with a gun.